I’ve mentioned my friend and former-neighbor, Sara, before. She used to have a blog here in the ‘sphere, but has since shut it down. She is an experienced counselor for couples who consider themselves non-traditional and, more importantly to me, a happy person and a happily married person.
She has generously offered to return to the realm in the name of this month’s Bloggers for Peace challenge, to explain The Thud and effective communication.
“The Thud” is a technique that Dave and I adopted, and — should you ever meet us in person (So Cal Blogger Meetup, anyone?) — you’ll no doubt hear us use it in the course of normal conversation.
To read the post, click through the pages since I thought it might be the easiest way. Also, Sara did not provide images so I dug some up on my own… bwuahaha.
Enjoy!
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Author’s Gratitudes
I would like to add my gratitude towards the Bloggers4Peace project, especially for shining a light on peaceful relationships. I would also like to thank Kozo for his site PeaceInMarriage.com, where his message inspired Rara to ask me to write something. And finally, I’d like to thank Rara for the providing the space and inspiring the bravery necessary to make me write.
Communication, the source of all happiness and unhappiness
Communication fail.
Traditional couple’s counseling focuses on communication as the key to a successful relationship. They say all the world’s happiness blossomed from the plant of communication.
What they fail to mention is how all the world’s unhappiness blossomed from communication too.
Instead I like to say that the key to a happy relationship is diplomatic, proactive, flexible-solution-oriented, truthful communication. Maybe Rara can help me make that catchy.
There’s a lot of ways to communicate an idea and a single word could be the difference between a lovingly mindful conversation and a fight. It is human nature to feel unsure, hurt, attacked and afraid. Effective communication allows us to instead inspire the other sides of our nature, like love, pride and innovation.
So what is diplomatic, proactive, flexible-solution-oriented, truthful communication? Let’s delve further into those innocuous adjectives.
